City rebounding from season's first storm

Thursday

Nov 8, 2012 at 12:00 PMNov 8, 2012 at 1:50 PM

All city streets were cleared by late morning after sanding and plowing crews worked through the night. "We simply had trucks stuck in traffic like everyone else," Public Works Commissioner Robert L. Moylan said of the gridlock that filled the city yesterday afternoon.

By Nick Kotsopoulos TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

All city streets were cleared by late morning after sanding and plowing crews worked through the night.

The city was in gridlock yesterday afternoon when the storm hit during the commute. Some highway maintenance vehicles got caught in the logjams.

Robert L. Moylan Jr., commissioner of public works, said weather forecasts his department received yesterday around 1 p.m. indicated that little, if any, snow was expected before the evening commute.

"We simply had trucks stuck in traffic like everyone else," Mr. Moylan said. "Because they were unable to treat the streets, they became icy very quickly. Where we could, we diverted some of the trucks to outlying areas that could be accessed."

According to Worcester police, from 3 p.m. yesterday to 11:30 this morning there were 93 reported accidents in the city, 21 of which involved injuries. There were 13 hit-and-run accidents. Police said there were no serious injuries.

Mr.. Moylan said citywide snow plowing operations began around 10 last night after the snow began to intensify and pile up.

He said more than 80 percent of all streets had been plowed by 5 this morning, in time for the commute. By noon today, he said, the streets were clear down to pavement.

Crews were positioned throughout the city after 3 p.m. to begin treating roadways with sand and salt.

But, he said, multiple accidents on Interstates 290 and 190 during the late afternoon not only turned those highways into parking lots, they ended up creating gridlock traffic conditions on many secondary streets, especially in the downtown area.

Mr. Moylan said traffic wanting to get on to I-290 from the downtown was unable to access the highway because of the traffic back-up on the highway.

"All access points to I-290 from the downtown were blocked and that traffic ended up spilling over into the local streets," he said. "That created a nightmare for downtown traffic and streets."

He added: "We could have had 10,000 sanding trucks out on the streets yesterday but that wouldn't have done any good because they would not have been able to go anywhere. They also would have only exacerbated the traffic situation.

Compounding the problem was the fact that a lot of people simply weren't prepared to drive in these conditions. There were those people who felt they could make it up some of our hills in these conditions without any snow tires or the like and they ran into problems."